An organizational plan is basically a “to do” list for an organization. It lists out the plan of work, programs, and organizational growth over a period of time - six months, a year, a five years. They can be pretty simple to create and use. Writing a plan can just mean getting a clear list of the types of work that need to be done, the tasks involved, who is responsible for them, and when they’ll be done. Below is an outline of the steps for creating an organizational plan.
Decide on Categories.
First, think about all the work that your organization does, and list out the general categories—for example, Fundraising, Community Outreach, Website, and so on. Some big categories might be split up—for example, dividing Fundraising into ‘Foundation Grants’ and ‘Grassroots Fundraising.’
Set Goals.
Second, make sure the goals for your work in each category are clear. Ask yourselves, “Where do we want to be with this work in a year?” Example: Fundraising: Raise $8000.
Set Tasks. Next, discuss each goal and talk about all the tasks that need to be done to achieve that goal. At this point, they don’t have to be in order. Some will be more specific than others; the more specific the better, in general. You may not know how to reach some goals, yet; it’s fine to have a task list that looks like “Get fundraising training. Create fundraising plan and schedule. Carry out plan.”
Plan a Schedule. When all the tasks are listed, number them to show a general order—what comes first, what should happen at the same time, what comes last? Then draft a schedule for the tasks—either when they will be completed, or (for ongoing tasks) when they will begin. The goal is to set a schedule that is challenging but realistic.
Choose Responsibilities.
Assign responsibilities by asking people to volunteer to be responsible for goals or tasks. A person’s name next to a task doesn’t mean that they’ll do it—just that they take responsibility for making sure it gets done. The goal here is to make sure everyone has enough responsibility to challenge them, without so much work that they will burn out. If nobody is willing to volunteer for a particular task, ask the group if it is really necessary to do it. If the group decides that it is, try to break it down into smaller tasks that might be easier to take on.
Support.
Brainstorm other individuals and organizations that can provide support, assistance or advice in helping you carry out particular tasks or achieve general goals.
Follow through. Come up with a plan to check in, support and encourage people as they carry out their tasks. This may mean choosing one person to regularly check on the status of different tasks, or it may be part of reporting back at meetings.
Plan Evaluation.
Finally, set a time to revisit the whole plan as a group to evaluate how things are going and revise assignments and schedules. This may be a few months or half a year in the future. A plan can help you: * Set priorities for your work * Make sure tasks get done on time * Focus on one thing at a time * Share work among staff, board members and volunteers * Make your goals clear to funders * Get a handle on big projects by breaking them down into smaller tasks * See the big picture of what your organization is doing

FUNCTIONING
In order to produce and sell their product or service most organisations will need to undertake 6 key functions. * Design and Production * Finance * Human Resources * Sales and Marketing * Administration * Research and Development.
Each of the functions will need to work together so that the whole of the organisation has the same aims and objectives. To achieve this communication across the various functions is key activity. A starting point for this type of communication is the creation of a clear set of company objectives which each function is aware of. These objectives then need to be further broken down into specific objectives for each function. Regular reviews of firstly how each function is performing against it’sobjectives and secondly how the company is performing against it’s overall objective should ensure that the whole company is pulling in the same direction.

Factors of Production
To generate a product or service an organisation will need to combine labour, capital, energy, materials and information.
Labour is the mental and or physical effort of employees and can take a variety of forms including filing, lifting, data processing, decision making, and line management. In fact labour is any effort/task an employee needs to undertake in order to produce the product or service.
Capital is the machines and tools needed to produce the product or service. This physical capital is purchased through financial capital such as loans, sale of shares in the organisation and use of profit generated by the organisation.
Energy is provided through the use of gas, electricity, solar power and steam. Energy is needed to heat/light up the premises, make the machinery work and to ensure that the organisation is a comfortable place for the employees to work in.
Materials in their raw form are needed to produce the product or service. For example a restaurant will need ingredients to make the food that they serve to their customers.
Information is the knowledge and expertise needed to produce the end product. For example a restaurant will need to know what ingredients are necessary for each dish, what quantity of ingredient to use, how to mix each ingredient and how long (if at all) to cook each dish.
NB Factors of production have also been classified into land, labour, capital and enterprise. In this type of classification natural resources such as water, coal and farm land are grouped together as land. Whilst enterprise, are all the factors which bring together land, labour and capital to produce the end product.
Finance Function
The financial section of the organisation will keep manual/electronic records of money received and paid out by the organisation. This information will then be used to produce various financial statements for tax purposes and to comply with legal requirements. The information will also be used to produce management accounts to enable senior managers to plan and review business strategy.
The finance department or unit may also be responsible for administering employee expenses and salaries. For payment of wages the finance department will need to take into account statutory deductions such as tax, and employee contributions such as pension or loan repayments. Human Resources Function
Human resources or Personnel’s main responsibility is the recruitment, selection, training and development of staff. This will involve developing staff to maximise their potential in a manner that furthers the organisation’s objectives.
Human resources may also need to comply with legislation applicable to the country in which they are based. For example in the UK employers will need to maintain accurate personal records in a manner that is compliant with the UK Data Protection Act 1984.
Human resources often adopt a welfare role which includes looking after employees whilst they are at work. They may also create policies that balance organisational needs with those of the employee. They will also interpret employee welfare legislation and ensure that the organisation is complying with the applicable legislation.
Sales and Marketing Function
The marketing department will research customer needs to develop strategy and product to satisfy that customer need. In it’s research, the marketing department will investigate the market they are aiming at; the type of consumer making up the market (age, background sex etc) and the preferences of the consumer within that market. The marketing department will then need to marry consumer preferences with producing a product that is profitable. Once the product has been designed by the production department marketing will then need to package, advertise, and promote the product.
Sales are responsible for persuading the consumer to purchase the end product, manufactured through marketing’s research. The Sales Department’s selling strategy could involve mail shots, travelling sales representatives, telephone sales and devising the sales interview.
Administrative ( or Facilities Management) Function
This involves dealing with all administrative tasks including mail handling, dealing with enquiries/complaints, catering, and computer services. They will also produce documents (e.g. forms, stationary, and newsletters) for the organisation and maintain the organisation’s premises and equipment.
This function although not always recognised is vital, as it is the glue that holds the organisation together. Without an administrative department, customer complaints would not be resolved, customer orders may not be processed, and the workforce may not have the tools they need to complete their tasks.
Research and Development Function
The aim of research and development is to improve existing products, create new and better products, improve production methods, and create effective processes. This will enable the organisation to reduce costs, increase profitability and remain ahead of the competition. As not all research will lead to new/improved products/processes companies will need to allocate a specific portion of their budget to research and development activities.
CHALLENGES FACED
Problems Faced by Entrepreneurs While Starting Business in India are 1. Bureaucracy, 2. Corruption. 3. Labour, 4. Regional Sentiments 5. Grey Market and Counterfeit Goods and 6. Social Capitals.
Not everybody will call the factors discussed here problems, but these can lead to problems if not managed properly.
These are the factors you have to take into account if you are operating in India. If managed correctly, these can be advantages; otherwise these can lead to serious problems for the enterprise.
Bureaucracy:
The word bureaucracy comes from the French word bureau, which refers to an ‘office’ and the Greek suffix kratos, which means ‘power’ or ‘rule.’ So, bureaucracy refers to the ‘rule of the office.’
Max Weber is one of the most influential social thinkers to have studied bureaucracy in detail. According to Weber, some of the main characteristics of bureaucracy are as follows:
1. Official business is conducted on a continuous basis.
2. Official business is conducted according to written rules.
3. Roles and responsibilities are defined within a hierarchy, with rights of supervision and appeal.
4. Official and private business and income is strictly separate.
Public offices are set up for the good of the people and the officials manning the posts are referred to as public servants. But, if left unchecked, these public officials can become self-serving and corrupt.
Firstly, there are a large number of procedures to be followed and clearances to be obtained to start and operate a business. Secondly, each of these procedures can take an inordinately large amount of time.
Procedures are established to safeguard the interest of the common man. But, sometimes, the rules and regulations stop serving the purpose they were designed for. Rules become tyrannical in nature and an enormous wasted effort is directed towards compliance with rules and regulations.
Lack of resources is one of the major problems faced by entrepreneurial firms. In this situation, new ventures find it extremely taxing to divert time and attention to time-taking procedural issues.
Corruption:
While under no circumstances, corruption can be justified, it is a bitter truth that it is rampant in many government departments. Even private sector is not spared by it. We have to make a collective effort to curb this social evil. As it hampers growth of the business, it is a challenge for budding entrepreneurs.
Sometimes, people pay money to just hasten processes and do not ask for any undue favours. According to Kauffman and Wei (1999), in an environment in which bureaucratic burden and delay are exogenous, an individual firm may find bribes helpful to reduce the effective red tape it faces.
For example, the bank is not releasing money even though it has sanctioned release of funds. There might be some official who has raised an unwarranted objection. In such cases, some people are tempted to grease the palms to get things flowing.
Some people also pay bribes to get something beyond the scope of what is fairly due to them, for example paying bribe to get money released from bank even though the paperwork is not in order. Sometimes, this is carried to a ridiculous extent such as paying money to ensure that the competitor’s funds are not released from the bank.
Many entrepreneurs have experienced a higher degree of corruption among employees of large private-sector companies than in the government. How you prefer to deal with corruption is your personal choice. There are some entrepreneurs who have taken the difficult path and have played it by the book.
Many entrepreneurs have chosen the middle path and have given in to corruption in some instances but later have fought vehemently against it and succeeded. There are also some dangerous entrepreneurs who use their access to corrupt officials as a competitive edge. But, such practice does not give them success in the long run.
Corruption has also spawned a business of ‘consultants’ whose only activity is to mediate between the corrupt officials and those seeking favours from them. Some entrepreneurs use them to secure funding from banks, get approvals for constructions, and for periodic submissions relating to labour laws, taxes, and industrial approvals.
The situation is now changing rapidly and there is hope that corruption will come down in the near future. The factors likely to lead to a lesser degree of corruption are as follows:
1. There is greater transparency in procedures to be seen across government departments. A number of departments have initiated e-governance initiatives, which decrease public interface with officials by enabling registration, filing, payments, and registering complaints through the Internet.
2. The right to information (RTI) Act has significantly changed the situation by giving greater access of government records to interested or affected members of the general public.
3. The media too has played an active and visible role by conducting sting operations to expose corruption at many levels. The public humiliation suffered by officials caught in these operations has served as a deterrent to corruption.
Labour:
Lack of manufacturing capability in India has been attributed to red tapism and corruption, but the low productivity of labour is also a big factor. In the early days of offshoring, firms from the US and Western Europe preferred to set up manufacturing facilities in Thailand, Mexico, and China, rather than in India. Though these countries too had an equally bad record of red tapism and corruption, the labour in these countries was found to be more productive.
In spite of our huge population and high economic growth, it was only in 2006 that the economy of India overtook that of Mexico in terms of GDP.
An active workers’ union is not bad, but sometimes, in India, there may be more than one union (e.g., one affiliated to CITU and the other to AITUC), with differing agendas, claiming to represent the workers’ interests.
Since India is a secular country, religious beliefs of every religion are respected. So, it has holidays on occasions such as Christmas, Good Friday, Holi, Diwali, Muharram, Id-ul-Zuha, Guru Nanak’s Birthday, Buddha Jayanti, and Mahavir Jayanti. There are also holidays on occasions of national importance.
As a result, the number of working days in a year is reduced. Furthermore, long breaks in work brought about by bandhs, regional unrest, and breakdown of supporting infrastructure in times of floods, earthquakes, and other natural calamities also disrupt the work.
Welfare measures that restrict long hours of work, protect women workers, and prohibit underage employees are desirable; but, misuse of these clauses to halt legitimate business practices is harmful for the growth of industry.
The Indian labour is cheap because of a comparatively low wage structure. But, the productivity of the cheap labour is not always satisfactory. Employers often need to keep a regular check on their employees.
The manufacturing sector is now beginning to take off, and there has been a spectacular growth in the services sector. There is a tremendous shortage of skilled and semi-skilled manpower. There are not enough institutions in India geared to train employable youth on skills that are in demand in the job market.
The manufacturing sector is facing a dearth of fitters, welders, draftsmen, and machine operators. The lack of elementary skills in many call centre and BPO employees has been very well documented by NASSCOM and other industry watchers.
Finally, stringent laws governing lay-off of employees make it very difficult to fire workers in case of non-performance or during times of financial distress when it becomes imperative to lay-off workers to maintain the financial viability of the business operations.
Regional Sentiments:
Many businesses have failed because they failed to take into account the sentiments of the local population. Many successful businesses have managed to identify and respond to local sentiments. Many outlets of international fast food chains such as Pizza Hut and McDonald’s do not serve beef or pork as a sign of respect for local mores. On the other hand, scores of businesses suffer because of anti-social elements trying to score political points by going on a rampage.
The local community expects to gain from every business being set up in its vicinity. This is especially true when businesses come up in economically backward areas with very little industrialization. The local community expects employment in the firm and does not react favourably to employment of migrant workers.
In case the business is also planning on marketing its end products in that area, some local businesses will be adversely affected. It is important to address the concerns of those who fear for their businesses. Otherwise, they are likely to try their best to drum up for an organized opposition to your business.
For example, if you are setting up a large biscuit factory, some local bakery owner will fear that his/her unit will have to close down. The local biscuit factory owner has to be reassured that the biscuits from your factory are aimed at a different market and are going to compete with Britannia and Parle and not with him/her. You have to be truthful; lying at this stage will not be of much use in the long run.
Sometimes, setting up an industrial unit will put pressure on the availability of scarce resources or might adversely affect the quality of the resources. For example, pollution can affect the quality of the ground water, or if it is a power-intensive unit, it might affect the availability of power in the area.
In case such adverse reactions from the local population are foreseen, it is usually desirable to spread the word about the advantages of having the business in the vicinity. Some of the advantages that can be presented to the local community are growth in employment, possibility of generating business for service providers such as small transporters and welding shops, long-term possibility of small ancillary units, and improvement of some local infrastructure such as roads.
Sometimes, entrepreneurs make goodwill gestures such as donating money to the local puja committee, buying a computer for the school, or something similar. Overdoing this can backfire as it can raise the expectation of the local community.
Grey Market and Counterfeit Goods:
The grey market refers to the flow of goods through a distribution channel not authorized or intended by the manufacturer. Usually, this happens when the price of a product in the domestic market is much higher than in other nearby markets.
Sometimes, this may be because of high local taxation. In India, the goods that are usually smuggled in are cell-phones, electronic goods, jewellery, and alcohol. Chen (2002) even suggests that grey marketing activities can develop a situation of fair competition in which social welfare increases. In India, the prices of cell-phones used to be very high but rampant smuggling has prompted a change in taxes and prices, greatly reducing the differential between India and Singapore or Dubai.
Another problem is that of counterfeit goods. Even though, strictly speaking counterfeit goods are not part of the grey market, increasingly people are clubbing the two together and including counterfeit goods in the definition of ‘grey’ products.
The existence of a well-entrenched grey market is a truth in the Indian business scene. The problem of ‘grey markets’ can be visualized as existing at various levels. Let us look at the following situations to have a clearer perception.
Suppose a customer is interested in buying a DVD player. She goes to an authorized dealer and the authorized dealer tries to sell her a spurious product. This is common in the case of branded electronic items, clothes, perfumes, and accessories. It is very easy for unscrupulous manufacturers to make imitation of the actual product and try to sell it as the real thing.
Sometimes, in the case of pirated products, the buyers know that they are buying fake items. They are willing to buy a product that gives them the same utility as the real product at a much lower cost. In many parts of India, people make a living by selling pirated copies of software, movies, and video games to customers who know that they are buying a pirated copy for a fraction of the cost of a legally procured copy.
Now, a range of proactive measures are taken by companies to stamp out counterfeit and grey goods. Some of these are outlined here:
1. Manufacturers are drastically reducing prices to narrow the gap in prices in local and overseas markets.
2. Warranties may not be extended to products not purchased through the regular channels. So, a Nokia service centre will not honour a manufacturer’s warranty on a Nokia product that has not been bought from a bona-fide dealer paying all taxes.
3. Some high-tech solutions have also been devised such as the use of DVD regional codes to protect movies and other digital content.
A new enterprise desirous of building a brand or an image of a manufacturer of high-quality goods needs to think about a strategy to tackle the problems posed by the grey market.
Fake products are an industry by themselves. There are many shady enterprises manufacturing fake labels, packaging, etc. There are many products that carry a name similar to that of the successful product. HUL has identified dozens of manufacturer of washing powder who sell using a brand name very similar to Surf. This is a direct contravention of the intellectual property rights of HUL.
Social Capital:
It is also loosely defined as Pehchaan in India or Guanxi in China. Social capital has been defined as the aggregate of the actual or potential resources that are linked to relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition (Bourdieu 1983). It can also be referred to as connections or relationships. Unlike other forms of capital, social capital is not depleted by its use; rather, it is depleted by its non-use.
People like to do business with people they know. Conversely, it becomes easier to do business if you know the right people. They may be the people either in the industry or in the bureaucracy. When relationships take precedence over the principles of fair play and rules, it leads to cronyism and nepotism. Sometimes, these relationships extend to doing special favours to others in your social group or caste and those connected by kinship.
Portes (1998) has identified the following negative consequences of misuse of social capital:
i. Exclusion of meritorious outsiders ii. Excessive claims on group members iii. Restrictions on individual freedom iv. Norms aimed at downward levelling
Measuring social capital can prove to be tricky, but it depends on how many people you know, how powerful are those people, and what they are willing to do for you. There are a number of cases of entrepreneurs who have benefited by knowing the right people and using it to their advantage.
Similarly, there will be a lot of cases of business failure that can be attributed to not having a close relationship with some significant individuals. Whether use of social capital for business purpose is right or wrong, can be argued for long, but its existence is a reality that every entrepreneur has to deal with.